The Geography Blog focusing on all things geography: human, physical, technical, space, news, and geopolitics. Also known as Geographic Travels with Catholicgauze!
Written by a former National Geographic employee who also proudly served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Friday, August 06, 2010

Map of the States' Debt

CNN has a depressing map which depicts the debt per capita per state. If one in lives in Massachusetts then their share of state debt is $4604 while the average Nebraskan only owes $15 dollars because of state overspending. (Hat tip: The Map Room)

The North Central states of Nebraska, Iowa, Wyoming, and South Dakota have the lowest levels of per capita debt. Historically these states have been criticized for having less services for their citizens; however, they are in less debt and will not have to take such drastic steps to avoid debt collapse like New Jersey currently is being forced to do.

4 comments:

it'd be interesting to compare this to a map of states by federal subsidies level. Mass pays way more to the federal gov't than it receives and the midwestern states receive lots of money from agricultural subsidies, etc.

It's a few years old, but here's a map by the Tax Foundation. One of the longstanding ironies of our political culture is that the states that are stereotypically most hostile to taxes and federal spending often receive more federal dollars than they contribute. I'm not too sure about the formatting, but the links are below.